Part 5 - Wednesday, June 25, 2008: Most say act is working; But there's no information on whether offenders are staying out of trouble 0

When reviewing the effectiveness of the five-year-old Youth Criminal Justice Act, a logical person would ask if it has been successful at rehabilitating young people who break the law.

One might think considering statistics about how often young criminals reoffend would be a major factor in the review of the YCJA the Conservative government is embarking on this year.

This, however, is not possible because that information is not available. Statistics Canada reports on youth crime rates annually. It has not done a comprehensive survey of recidivism rates among young offenders since the inception of the YCJA. In fact, no one has.

Jennifer Thomas, manager of Statistics Canada's youth court survey, said the organization is embarking on this type of survey. It will be about two years before any data is released to the public.

It would be easier if the provinces and territories all had a central administrative system linked up to police and if people were born with a bar code so they could be tracked through the system. This is not the case.

StatsCan is working on it and hopefully, this data will be available in the future.

"We're getting there," Thomas said.

We may not have hard data to determine if the YCJA is working, but we do have the opinions of those who spend their days working in the system.

No one says it's perfect, but most of those willing to go on the record are confident it's working.

He helped lead Greater Sudbury Police through changes brought on by the act when it was implemented in 2003.

Thirkill said the public thought the Juvenile Delinquents Act (in effect from 1908 to 1984) was too serious and the Young Offenders Act was too lenient.

"So they were hoping that the Youth Criminal Justice Act would be somewhere in between," Thirkill said.

"It comes across as more lenient for first-time, non-violent offenders, but in actual fact it's supposed to be more serious for the serious youth crime," he said.

"If that's a philosophy that everybody is taking, I think it's great for us, but unless it's taken seriously regarding the serious crimes, it's not going to work very well."

Assistant Crown attorney Fran Howe, who is permanently stationed in youth court, said the YCJA provides for a wide-range of judicial and non-judicial responses.

"Within the scope of all the possible sentences, including the availability of an adult sentence where the sentencing court deems in appropriate, the YCJA has the potential to address adequately criminal behaviour by the youth that come before it."

Psychologist Paul Valliant, of Laurentian University, has worked with young offenders since 1981. He said the system is a lot better than it was a decade ago.

"I think right now the legal justice system is on the right track. What I see out there in the community I like," he said.

Valliant said the youth judges in Sudbury have had an open mind regarding the research into youth criminal behaviour.

"That is to try to understand where these kids have come from and how to properly provide the counselling," he said. "I believe that these justices of the court are in fact now advocating for these kids that are messing up and trying to get them into treatment programs."

Parents and those who work on the front lines with these youths would advocate for more funding for programs.

John Rimore, of the John Howard Society, agreed there is never enough, but there is more money for these young people than there has been in the past. Rimore stressed that he was "apolitical," but said "in the last three years we have more resources than we had in the past, and I'm going back 20 years."

The government has realized savings because more minor cases are diverted from the courts to social service agencies such as John Howard and the Canadian Mental Health Association.

"Any financial saving that the government has seen from the changes have gone back into programs for the youth," Rimore said.

He is a strong believer in diversion programs and has a real problem with governments going off "willy nilly" to change the system to make it look like they are being tough on crime. Rimore would like politicians and the public to really take a look at the young people who commit crimes.

"People forget that today some of the youth we are seeing are coming from really tragic circumstances," he said.

"I think one of the reasons why youth crime is such a big issue and gets big headlines is because most people raise children that are good children," Rimore said.

Even some of those good children, however, mess up sometimes.

"If they were to know everything they needed to know to live a great life as responsible adults by the time they were 15, we wouldn't be having this conversation," he said.